for the first time.
Here we were in his office, in the company he'd laboured years to build, and we were the intruders. The only difference was, I could leave anytime and it would mean nothing. When Garrett left, it meant the end of everything - his life's work, his dreams, his two oldest friendships.
I didn't want to feel responsible for that defeat, and I resented Garrett because I did anyway. He was the one who'd quit his secure day job. He was the one who'd mortgaged our family land. Why was I feeling guilty?
The frosted door of the conference room opened.
Matthew Pena stepped out, followed by two briefcase warriors in dark blue suits.
Pena zeroed in on us immediately, but was too busy shaking hands with the blue suits, telling them goodbye. As soon as the visitors were safely out the door to the reception area, Pena made a beeline toward us, walking leisurely, his expression no more con
frontational than a tank about to roll over a bicycle.
"You don't work here," he told Maia and me. "You will leave."
His face was an even creepier albino hue in the fluorescent lights. The bruise on his jaw where Clyde had punched him looked like a smoke ring.
"They're helping me," Garrett growled. "Lay off."
Pena studied him. "I'm sure you can understand our security concerns, Mr.
Navarre - not letting unauthorized visitors in. You remember the idea of security, don't you?"
Garrett yanked his knife out of the wall. The headline fell to the floor.
I put my hand on his forearm. "Let's talk, Pena."
"We have nothing to talk about."
"Come on, Tres," Maia Lee said. "We can catch up with the gentlemen from the SEC, have our conversation with them."
Pena's eyes narrowed.
He looked at the point of Garrett's knife, then back at Maia.
"I can give you five minutes," he decided.
Pena started walking toward the conference room.
I turned to Garrett. "Keep it cool, okay?"
"Sure," Garrett grumbled. "One homicide at a time."
I left him holding the knife in one hand, the Chinese warrior in the other like a grenade, and I followed Maia through the frosted glass door.
Chapter 19
Pena's newly acquired conference room had one wall that was all window, a rectangular table with six chairs, and a bare bookshelf. On the conference table was a box marked Trash. Inside was a Jimmy Doebler pot, a picture of Ruby and Jimmy's wedding, and a dried bouquet of pink roses.
Pena was looking out the window - his back to us, his hands folded behind his waist.
"Five minutes," he reminded us.
I sat down next to Maia, took advantage of Pena's dramatic pose to stick my bottlecapsize digital recorder to the underside of the table. Maia raised her eyebrows at me.
Pena turned around.
"Well?"
"I'm sorry," I said. "I was savouring the moment."
He checked his watch - a stainless steel Tag Heuer, a diver's model. Three thousand dollars' worth of ticktock. "Perhaps you have time to waste, Mr. Navarre."
"Speaking of wasting time," I said, "thanks for the fish guts. Must've eaten up a chunk of your morning - what with hostile takeovers, lives to ruin. I'm flattered."
His face told me nothing. One of Pena's computers couldn't have spit out data as non sequitur any more quickly than he did. "You now have three minutes."
Maia Lee ran her finger along her lips like the barrel of a gun.
"We need to have our discussion again, Matthew - the one where we review the rules of polite society."
His eyes dimmed.
At least he wasn't a total fool. He'd learned to associate pain with Maia.
"You shouldn't have come here," he warned her. "Ron Terrence agrees with me - it isn't like you to be so unprofessional."
"You haven't seen unprofessional yet," she promised. "But keep talking. Tell me how your little high school lackeys out there - the ones who can't seem to find their way into the program - are going to solve Techsan's software problems in a couple of days."
It took Pena a good thirty seconds to remember to look condescending.
"Dwight Hayes has been talking to you," he decided. "No matter. Dwight's job was terminated last night, the moment he touched me. Whatever he says now can be dismissed as the rantings of a fired employee."
"I thought you two went way back," I said.
Pena stared at me, as if he didn't see my point. "Whatever Dwight told you, Mr.
Navarre, Techsan selfdestructed with no help from me. Like so many other startups, your brother and his friends didn't have the first clue how to bring their product to market. They